KentConnects Blog

Welcome to the KentConnects blog, where we provide tips, best practices, examples, and more helpful information to improve your processes, boost your efficiency, and make your lab work smarter and safer.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and while breast cancer incidence rates and death rates have both been declining for years, breast cancer is still the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women, and has the second-highest death rates.

On August 1, meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier was nominated as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP). The office plays a central role in determining research and development budgets, providing science and technology expertise for national policy, and coordinating the White House’s science agenda for government, higher education, and the private sector.

Kent Scientific’s SomnoSuite Low Flow Anesthesia System not only uses a fraction of the isoflurane while maintaining stable levels of anesthesia for mice and rats, it has another, less well-known benefit: it does not require compressed gas in order to operate.

Animal models have been used in biomedical research for hundreds of years, and some of the most important breakthroughs animal research has made possible are vaccines. Research with mice, rats, and other animals has led to vaccines for polio, several types of meningitis, typhus, whooping cough, smallpox, tetanus, measles, cholera, and many more.

Every scientist that has conducted experimental research with animal subjects knows that an essential part of any experiment is determining which variables have the potential to affect the outcome. Ideally the variables not being tested are known and controlled, but in some cases unknown variables have caused skewed and unexpected results.

One of the variables that continues to pop up as an influencing factor in research is gender.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, kids’ top dream jobs include dancer, actor, musician, athlete, detective, and astronaut.

While all of these jobs are legitimate careers (wizard and superhero did not make the list, at least), most are extremely difficult to transform from a dream into a real career. But #4 on the list of kids’ dream jobs was more promising: scientist.

Laboratory animals are a valuable resource. Using mice and rats as surgical models for biomedical research represents a significant investment of time and money. Researchers who are privileged to work with live animals bear a responsibility to respect their resources and understand that it’s important to do everything possible to achieve the most accurate data, while at the same time maximizing the safety of the animals.